Actually - I've read all your messages as well as many of your blog posts (as part of this string and the others). I only reposted the response since my email response above was not in response to the message you posted prior to your post (but you did post it later). So it made it come across as if I were responding to the longer note...

Ah - thanks for the tip! And I'm happy to chat on Skype if you think the Software Engineering Manager role isn't the right fit and you think you'd be more interested in a Chief Architect position or something else along those lines. We have a variety of high skill roles that our customers are looking for that you may be a good fit for. But either way - good luck and feel free to reach out at anytime. I know we have a lot of improvement areas to make Crossover better - but I'm definitely committed to listening and learning - then quickly implementing. I'm passionate we can create this new world where location is completely independent to high-end, long term roles...

I read till skype and surely thought... Let's @Andy_Tryba my skype name is caue.rego! (trying to change it now to cregox since I always forget if there is a . or not and that sucks hard balls)

(another hint, choose to Watch this topic if you want to get notified by it - else you only get notifications when someone mentions you. I think. Discourse is kinda broken, but it's best we've got and it is something else from any other "forum" tool)

Chief of any kind of Operations is sure a role I might want, it would depend on commitment time required and investment - I've only got time to invest and even that almost nothing.

If you do need a topic to skype, bring it. What are the biggest issues you're facing today? Hiring still?

Yesterday, talking to my newest close friend, he forced me into realizing something... I had already written somewhere a very short description of what basiux.org is today, something along these lines: basiux.org has the same goal as openai.com with 2 twists: I started it when I was born. And I've been using all my free time since July into building what you can see on the website now (along with all links available). All that is being translated into the novel. He told me he was reading s…

Ah - thanks for the tip! And I'm happy to chat on Skype if you think the Software Engineering Manager role isn't the right fit and you think you'd be more interested in a Chief Architect position or something else along those lines.

As I've told you on skype chat @Andy_Tryba (and got a bit sad we couldn't talk over voice), I was preparing myself. And just now, while I'm writing this, I can see I had read you way too wrongly - "Chief Architect position or something (...) along those lines" as some "CTO or something". And, after the brief skype conversation, I've assumed you read my reply there, which you probably didn't. So it was some miscommunication there.

Fuck my arrogance and stupidity.

In any case, I'll continue as if that was the case, for now. You see, I figured I'd have to do an extraordinary application in every single way to prove my point, and now I believe I'm ready to. I'll even share the whole preparation story right here, right now, and then I'll start rushing to apply. I hope you will read and enjoy!

What I will do next and asap

I've already studied 2 different applications. The obvious 30k one up there in the first post and a new one, just yesterday, with a friend. Yes, you heard me right, I'm partially confessing I had someone to apply together with me, so I could see the application process and get prepared to do it.

You see, I'm not saying anything you don't know it's possible.

My application

I'll apply to all positions I think I can perform well on the first stages, and I'll only continue on the one I think I can finish until the end.

I also bet you'll be surprised on how much I can accomplish there, if you take a close look. Instead of wasting a whole week to do something good, I can do it in 2 days, you see? Then, you should be able to realize I don't need to do the last time consuming automated test stage. But even if you don't, I'll complete it as soon as possible.

Just to contribute to this topic, here's my experience with Crossover:

As many people here mentioned, the application process is composed of many steps, first of them, a dull, unpractical online test full of brainteasers. After that, I was directed to another process that was the challenge. It required me three days to have the challenge ready, but I took only too.

On a Saturday prior to my starting the whole challenge work, somebody from Crossover called me "just to check when I was intending to start the challenge", but I guess the person on the phone just wanted to make sure I could speak English.

I was supposed to build this prettifier routine, and to provide documentation, UML, a readme.txt file with installation howtos, a video and best practices along with that. So I did it. It took me a lot of my nerves just to figure out how to make a decent proposition out of such a small project that barely reflected the real world. A couple of days after that, I received a notification to carry on with the process, so I was scheduled an interview with a Technical reviewer.

The interviewer was a very very nice person ( and I can't emphasize enough how nice he was ). I had some quirks with my internet connection which he was very understanding. He even mentioned a couple of times during the screening that he had liked a lot my project and that he was "rooting" for me.Now, I wasn't aware that this technical screening interview was about asking a lot more technical questions and evaluating further on my technical knowledge for the job offer. But although I was very nervous and the questions where tricky ones sometimes,

I did manage to pass that phase as well. Up to that point I had spent two entire weeks of both my time and my nerves. The next day I received this automatic email stating that I had passed the entire challenge process, and that I was now part of this "marked" as they called. I received another email stating that somebody from Crossover would call me, it took a couple of days to receive the phone call.

A nice person called me to congratulate me for now being part of the Crossover Market and he asked if I had any questions. I did have and he did answer my questions. He then said that I was now "in for the ball" as he said. Or in other words, I was still subject to evaluation from the hiring manager and it could happen that he refused my resume and never requested my services or even an interview. Well, that didn't happen, the hiring manager requested me an interview which happened a few days ago.

I'm from Southern Brazil, this hiring manager was from Poland. So I got very nervous as I'm not used to dealing with eastern Europeans. I was afraid to say something that he could hold against me, which he totally did.So, again, the job offer was for a Senior Full Stack Developer, which up to that point I had totally nailed it. Although it was a very very stressful process and in my opinion, full of unnecessary challenges that could have been evaluated in a completely different way, I did manage to get approved, and as they like to say, I was then part of their top 1% ( big deal, huh?! ).

Back the the hiring manager. He was a polite person, but very strict to his technicalities, which seemed to be pretty much focused on someone who had a previous experience with this paid library for graph mapping routines, which I didn't have.

He started the interview by stating that he liked a lot the fact that my resume wasn't focused on just one set of technology, as it's still common to find programmers who are still only .NET or Java programmers; in my case I had this whole lot of "tools" ( as he said ), which reinforced the fact that I was a Senior Full Stack Developer. Up to that point I was feeling pretty confident about myself. He then asked if I had a prior experience with this specific paid library, which I didn't.

Confusingly enough he then changed his conversation by stating that I wasn't then a (sic) full fledged Full Stack Dev. He proceeded the interview by asking if I felt comfortable with instead of working with backend routines, working then with front end. He asked me a lot of questions about AngularJS, Javascript and he then asked me a very confusing question, which was: "have you ever programmed an algorithm?".

Now, I got very confused and nervous about that question! I mean, I have been working as a programmer for 15 years already. I'm currently a Software Engineer, with easily verifiable credentials. Not to boast, I have been hired overseas, worked in The USA and Germany as part of a huge team of development, with very advanced tasks that where required from both my overseas jobs, but he was asking me if I was able to program an a.l.g.o.r.i.t.h.m? What in this world did that mean? Was he implying that I was a web designer? Not to bring down the worth of my designer colleagues, but they do have clearly different working routines than a Software Engineer has. I wasn't sure what he meant,

I got so nervous that I do not even remember what I answered to him. Everything I can recall was the confusion I was feeling. After that he ended the interview by stating that he would interview a few other people and he would get back to me should he have an answer, positive or negative. But one can easily tell when he didn't perform well with something. And I knew I was out.Yesterday I got the automatic email stating that I was "unfortunately" out.

The email stated that I was (sic) "still in for the ball" for any other hiring manager that might get interested in my resume. Today, as I got back to the "market" just to check the other "opportunities", I clicked onto this one for Android Developer position, if I'm correct. Which COMPLETELY erased my history of ALREADY having passed the ENTIRE EXTREMELY PAINFUL selection process, and now I must take all the way again all the process, including the stupid brainteasers, 3 days development challenge, screenings, interviews and everything. Just to be able to apply to a LOWER RANK position than the one I was already selected. Now, there's nothing left from my previously approved position in their market, and I'm as good as somebody who had NEVER EVER gone through their stinking evaluation process.If I can be of any help here with whoever might be reading this review. It's a complete waste of time!

Their entire chain is not capable of truly evaluating a professional by their background and by setting real life challenges. It's all about brainteasers and inventing these humongous requisites with nicely adorned job titles just to as easily as pie, dismiss your entire working history and experience just because you do not know about this expensive stinking library. From all the reviews I read here ( and elsewhere ) all the people who failed in their selection process failed in earlier stages than mine.

Should you ever be in my position, that is: not good for this certain job vacancy, but still in the open for any other you might want. It's not worth it! For should you attempt to apply for a different position, not only you will have to go through the ENTIRE ordeal again, as many times you wish to apply for a position, but your entire history will be erased and you are back to nothing again. Complete waste of time, resources, nerves and money. Please, spend them with something that is worth it!Now I'm left with my nerves in pieces.

I'll have to put all my pieces together again, a little wiser yes, but a LOT more exhausted, in order to be able to pass another application process, this time with something - hopefully - that is worth it.

Thats so cool response! I've laughed so hard after a.l.g.o.r.y.t.h.m .... Well, now my start of the story.I've contacted 2 days ago about being able to pass that process to apply Team Lead Position. 50$ per hour is rather great salary for me, you know. HR said that I shoud be able to guide 4-5 teams at once with my remote skills. That sounds pretty unbelievable because Im already working as Team Lead and its so hard to guide the only team, what can I do with 5 at once? But im strong person and I want to grow. So no problem, lets try. I've googled all day long to check if it is good idea to apply that "marked" and found that blog as well as some responses on glassdoor. I dont beleive glassdoor reviews, 75% of them are paid, im 100% sure. But some of reviews seemed rather ok.By the way, I was told by HR that at Saturday "some high person" will visit my town to have a close look on candidates so Im invited to that party. Gonna see whats going on there. I have a bad experience of wasting large amount of time and nervous while applying some other companies that made me to send 3-7 days developing the apps . That time Ill be smarter and wont tear my ass, cz im already tearing my ass going into production this week. But Im gonna try.

I'm still on my own saga to get in. I've applied to 2 vacancies and got replies only from one of them. Also the $50 per hour probably for same management role but I wasn't ready for a coding test (management role requiring hands on coding is quite unexpected) and although I've failed that part miserably they wanted me to try again within 1 month rather than the default 6 (maybe because I delivered everything else, maybe because of my history maybe because it's all a mess, no clue) so I decided to go for other things in life on the meanwhile.

As already stated I still want to get in regardless of staying so I'll update this again once I do.

@Lanqu I've got no clue where you're standing in the process. Did you pass it, are you in the market? If so, congratulations. It is a difficult test (although not so much if you happened to be lucky enough to have knowledge in java or csharp and an environment ready to go - or previous knowledge of just that precious hint).

Hi cregox, I just formatted it. I'm not sure why the text was written like that, I swear I didn't see it until today as @Lanqu posted his message here.

Now, one update on things...

I did send a message to Crossover requiring them to give my old status of "in for the ball" as a Senior Full Stack Developer. After a couple of days I received this email from Crossover stating that I was still a Senior Full Stack Developer at their Market and that all the Hiring Managers were still able to see my Profile there as such. Then said it was a bug at their system and I couldn't set the status back.

A few days ago I received an invitation for an interview, actually the interview is for the company I initially applied for. The interview is going to be on this wednesday. It was written in the email that there is going to be some pair-coding in the interview. That had made me very very uneasy for the past 3 days, for as I stated, I'm already through with coding interviews that lead to just more coding interviews. But yesterday I came to the resolution that I'm going to take part in the interview, for the good or the bad. Then, if things do change, if everything I wrote here is not what it seemed to be, I will then be fair and tell that it does work, ... er.... after a lot of stress and frustrations.

So, as I promissed, here is the final output of the interview with this company's hiring manager who's a client of Crossover...

I had accepted the interview invitation and chose it to be scheduled for last Tuesday at 4pm (my time). I was ready and very nervous about it for the entire weekend, as I had said many times here that Crossover had already taken all my nerves, and here I was again, set, again for another coding-along interview.

I wonder why in this world a company would want to double check if I was programming capable, knowing that Crossover is already supposed to be this top notch filtering company which sets apart only (as they like to say) their top 1% of the applicants. But well.

So there was I, nervous, shaking like hell, awaiting for an interview that never happened. I waited for two hours almost, and nobody really came to talk to me, although a couple of people from the company did add me to their skype (this interview was supposed to be over skype).

During this waiting process, a contact from Crossover was at skype asking me if they had already contacted me. So, after these two hours waiting, we both agreed it wouldn't happen anymore and she set a commitment to have it rescheduled, which was nice of her.

It didn't take more than an hour and the hiring manager from this company sent me another interview invitation, which I promptly accepted and scheduled it for yesterday at 3pm (my time). Same thing, almost two hours waiting and nothing happened. This time the contact from Crossover never got back to me, neither did she follow up on anything.

Feeling pretty fed up of being the one who has always to give everyone guarantees, who has to waste one's time in order to receive any sort of agreement that won't render me any type of guarantees should I ever start working for them, I sent Crossover's hiring manager this email:

Hi Rebecca,

The interview was rescheduled for today at 3pm my time. I think it's 1pm at Austin Texas' time.

I waited for over an hour and they hadn't gotten in touch with me at all, once more.

Now I'm once more left with too small a window to attend any technical programming interview, should they attempt to contact me from this time on.

Please, don't hold it against me, but I'm done with it. This entire application process has required way more than I have psychologically. I've been putting my best effortsfor almost two months and it has been quite difficult, although I did make it to this point of being part of the Crossover Market.

That said, I do not wish to be part of this application process anymore. If you could please, remove my name from it, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Thank you for being there during the last failed interview and rearanging this second opportunity for me. But I need now to move on, to - hopefully - somethingthat will render me some results.

Best regards

So, I guess, I'm done with Crossover.

BTW, I just received an offer from this company from Utah, USA, to work as a remote programmer in RoR. Like I said, I was going to spend some time now with something that is worth it!

I know some of you will argue that this is not Crossover's fault. I put the fault on them, as they always fail to be organized and to provide their "top notch 1%" a good care, treating them like trash, underworld scum, as they never really bothered to send me any sort of feedback on the twice failed interview arrangement. Not over skype or email. So, yeah, they are just a bunch of disrespectful people and I do keep my word that it's a complete waste of time.

Such awful commitment capacity indeed. It happened to me at least a couple times from couple different people from crossover as well. I also find it highly disrespectful. There are no excuses for that, specially when they're the ones to pick the date and time.

My update goind here.Ive been on Crossover party they invited me on. There was 1 more candidate besides me!!!! So we've got presentation by CIS CrossOver top manager Petr Tarasevich and asked lots of questions. There were also some of current employees. Some of them are really earning 100k $ / year .... at least they've said that.Also each of them pointed out that the trial is the most awful and the hardest part of application process. They said timing is so strict that you must plan to sleep a few hours a day to get in time. But thats ok for such salary opportunity))Ive completed my first step on Software Manager Engineer. Though Ive thought im gonna be called something like TeamLeader...but manager.. ok np. Test was not the easiest one in my life. Some questions were about hijacking and man-in-the-middle, and others were just like in IQ tests and some were pure managers questions like what are you gonna to do if you cant get in touch with collegues and so on and so force.. Well rather different questions were answered.Now Im required to complete my profile and then the trial will arrive im a bit afraid of getting into it.. But everything still looks real.

I had a very surprising and uneasy experience with crossover. They did send me an e-mail stating that my application was rejected 6 hours before my trial period would end. I was just wrapping my project up for delivering. I would say I lost a precious time (time that I had to split with my full-time job, family and resting) if I didn't believe that working and studying are almost never lost time.

Quoting the e-mail:

After carefully considering your application (though you are clearly talented), we are sorry to inform you that the hiring manager decided to pursue another direction.

That would be fair if they could have seen my project, which didn't happen.

Hi, these guys gave me a call to me invite me to an interview. I decided to do some investigation about this company and your comments are really helpful.I don't know why they give tasks for 3 days, but I think to skip this part. Life is too short for the wrong interview to say. Thank you again for providing this useful information and wish you luck with the company.

Thanks all for the great feedback. I just applied to crossover and was invited to complete the 3 day project. I am now thinking if it is even worth it after seeing all these comments. Thanks for the heads-up.

To me, it was much longer than 3-days but I did my best with it. I had to design a web back end, a front end, and a desktop client. This had to be secure, it needed complete docs, a dummy database, and a video overview.

3 days

This is nuts. No one can reasonable do this unless they have previous work they can reference. I pretty much did not sleep for 2 days in order to just get the three software systems working. I had about 1 hour for the design doc. They also wanted complete unit testing and said I would be rejected if I didn't use it.

I like unit testing ... but setting it up for a 3 day throw-away project doesnt make any sense to me.

Ayways, I did my best and worked as hard I could for me. I don't think I will get through this portion of the phase, but am proud that I did mange to get something functional within that period of time.

I wish I had more time to put into the design doc because I built some interesting systems and wanted someone to see that.

So, my experience is that they need to either scope down their projects or give more time.